Tag: Prostate Cancer

In two weeks time Toni and Carol should be recovering after a 10 mile run on the south coast. Yesterday for the first time they ran just over 10 miles so are feeling confident about the Great South Run (providing Carol’s knee doesn’t kill her and Toni hasn’t succumbed to hypothermia). It will be shorter runs now for the next couple of weeks. I am always impressed by people who can run longer distances whether it is 10k, 10m or longer – my longest run was twice round the sewage farm when I was at school (why they picked that route I am not sure but it did encourage us to not hang around) although I would happily walk much further than that. Apart from the challenge of competing in an event rather longer than their usual runs (even though it is obstacle free) they are raising money for Cancer Research UK and are within spitting distance of their target. Continue reading “Two weeks to go”→

Ten years ago I was invited to give a talk at one of the monthly socials run by the Amersham & Chesham branch of the MS Society. Since then I have been asked back half a dozen times and fortunately I have found half a dozen other topics to talk about. Therefore when I spotted an Article by BBC reporter Caroline Wyatt titled How I’m feeling after my MS ‘body reboot’ I thought I would read it.

Just over a year ago I wrote “Is it a blip or a trend?” about my blood test results. That time is was an encouraging improvement in my platelet levels which allowed me to avoid Plan B and go on to Plan C. (Plan A was prednisolone which bumped up my blood glucose and played havoc with my diabetes, Plan B was rituximab, most of which’s side effects weren’t fatal, and Plan C was carry on with the lower dose prednisolone and see what happens and eventually stop the prednisolone). This time the question is aimed at a less than encouraging increase in my PSA levels. Continue reading “Is it a blip or is it a trend (2)?”→

From comments in the press about marks being adjusted for the stiffer A levels so that the trend doesn’t show a big dip (!) I guess it’s that time of year when youngsters nervously await the results for tests they took a month or two back. For me my test was on Monday and the results came in today. So my waiting time was only a couple of days (but it happens every three months not once a year). Continue reading “It’s that nervous time of year again”→

San Diego Dan has been investigating the Facebook Prostate Cancer support group. One comment he made was “one person spoke of how her husband was sleeping upwards of 20 hours per day.” which would make you an insomniac if you were a koala but is not so good for homo sapiens. But that set me to thinking about how having prostate cancer can affect those around you (or me) – the ‘spectators’. They have to put up with my irritability, lethargy, concerns and a host of other things with no thought of thanks. I am grateful for their support whether it is just a ‘like’ on this blog, the invitation round for tea, a visit or more. Continue reading “Spare a thought for the ‘spectators’”→

I saw my oncologist this week and it is “steady as she goes”. My latest PSA is 0.21 marginally up from the last reading of 0.15 but still crawling along the bottom of the graph. (I won’t talk percentages – it’s a 40% increase, which sounds more scary than a 0.06 increase).

Liz was looking at the calendar and asked why I had put “Trip to pup” on it. Perhaps she thought something doggy was going on, but one large hairy rottweiler/german shepherd cross is enough. So I explained that it wasn’t “Trip to pup” but “Tripto top up”. In other words my three monthly triptorelin injection. I am glad I cleared that up.

Back in the days when I used to toddle up to London on a daily basis the company I worked for was trying to licence a whole range of inventions, many of which came from universities or research institutes, to companies who would take them into production. Some of these were drugs like cephalasporin antibiotics and other clever polywallywhatsits. (I dealt with engineering inventions which were much easier to spell but nothing to do with the story I am trying to tell.)